STARKVILLE — Every time she steps inside the circle, Mississippi State pitcher Kenley Hawk can look down at her glove for a three-word reminder.
“You belong here.”
Hawk’s parents have consistently told her that. So have her coaches and her teammates.
But Hawk hasn’t always believed it.
The Arkansas native is entering her fourth year at Mississippi State, but she nearly couldn’t make it that far. Mental health struggles, including a battle with anxiety, made Hawk feel like a different person. She questioned everything: Was Southeastern Conference softball right for her? Was she wanted at MSU? Did she even belong?
“I was a mental case,” Hawk said. “I would constantly have negative thoughts roll through my head.”
Hawk’s first two years in Starkville were lonely. Her third changed everything.
There were still ups and downs to her 2022 season. There was — quite literally — blood, sweat and tears.
But Kenley Hawk is still standing — and standing even taller now.
She’ll still need the occasional reminder, but she now knows the same thing everyone else does: She belongs here.
“She’s good enough to perform at this level and perform at a high level,” Mississippi State coach Samantha Ricketts said. “She’s got all the talent in the world.”
Welcome to the SEC
Those who watched Hawk pitch in high school would tend to agree with Ricketts.
Hawk was unhittable. During her junior season alone at Palestine-Wheatley High School, she tossed eight no-hitters — including a perfect game — and 12 shutouts. She had a 0.38 ERA. She was all-state and all-America.
Then she came to Starkville.
Right away, Hawk found out Arkansas Class 2A softball and the SEC are two different worlds. It was clear right down to the smallest details: a different strike zone; more intense coaching.
It was a “culture shock” for a girl from Palestine, Arkansas, a town of fewer than 700 people, three restaurants and few success stories.
“Why do you think you belong here?” Hawk asked herself. “You’re from a very small town. Literally almost nobody makes it out, and you did, so why do you think you deserve it?”
It was even harder to fathom in comparison to the rest of Hawk’s teammates at MSU during her freshman season.
She was impressive with a 2.33 ERA in 15 innings in the shortened season, but four other pitchers saw more work. Hawk shared a dugout with high-level players like Mia Davidson and Fa Leilua.
“My freshman year, I was very overwhelmed because I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, these girls have played big-level ball since they were 12,’” Hawk said. “I was playing C-class, what they would consider rec ball, up until I was like 14. I was very intimidated.”
Her cup of coffee as a freshman went cold the following year. In 2021, Hawk pitched barely half as much as she had the year before. She got shelled, too.
Hawk posted a 10.08 ERA in 8 1/3 innings. In her lone start against Alcorn State, she recorded just one out and gave up four runs.
She loved Starkville and the Bulldogs’ program, but unhappy with her own performance and the resulting lack of playing time, Hawk considered transferring.
Her parents helped change her mind. Perre and Heather Hawk reminded their daughter how far she’d come. They told her to stay the course and stick with her teammates.
Hawk remembers their message: “Any obstacle that’s thrown at you, you’ve never given up, so why do it now?”
A lucky break?
Hawk decided to stick around, and she got her big break during the summer after her sophomore year.
It just wasn’t the break she expected.
Smacked with a comebacker during her first game of summer ball in Florida, Hawk broke multiple bones in her face. It was an eye-opener in more ways than one.
Hawk realized she’d been holding herself back. Now, time was running out.
“After having the whole face-break incident, it was kind of like, ‘You need to get it in gear because you have two years left to do what you’ve prepared for this whole time,’” she said.
At the start of the 2022 season, Hawk appeared ready. She struck out two Oklahoma hitters in her first game, then fanned 13 against Alabama State in six shutout frames five days later. She rebounded from a blowup start at Florida with 10 total scoreless innings across two games against Ole Miss.
A month later, though, Hawk shut her finger in her hotel room door on her way to Rhoads Stadium in Tuscaloosa for the first game of a three-game series.
Pitching in Game 2 in relief with a 6-1 lead in the sixth inning, an injured Hawk allowed a walk and two home runs before being yanked from an eventual 7-6 walk-off loss for the Bulldogs.
“Whenever I got thrown in, it just killed me, you know?” she said. “I felt like I ripped the opportunity away from my teammates because I wasn’t at my best and didn’t also do my best. I was more mad at myself for that.”
Life went on. Athletic trainer Macy Simoneaux “nursed my finger back,” Hawk said. Physically and mentally, she felt better.
Then a couple bad practices before a road series at Kentucky two weeks later “just ate me alive.”
“Nobody wants to talk about a bad practice,” Hawk said. “So you sit in your room and you think about it and you just begin to go straight internal, and then it takes over your whole day.”
‘That was just not who I am’
Hawk had her ways of dealing with her anxiety when it was at its worst.
Some of those outlets were healthier than others.
“Sometimes — I hate to admit this — I would literally go to the bathroom and just take a good scream-cry and just let it out, and then I would be OK,” Hawk said.
Toward the end of her junior year, Hawk picked up journaling, inspired by a classmate in a freshman-level communications class who swore by the hobby. She writes before games, trying to get everything out of her head before taking the field.
On good days, Hawk’s journal entries are short — half a page or so. On bad days, they can be up to five pages.
At first, Hawk thought her problems could be self resolved. She hid the extent of her struggles from her coaches and most of her teammates; only pitcher Aspen Wesley really knew what was going on.
Even Hawk’s family, three and a half hours away in Palestine, was left in the dark.
“I was very much like, ‘OK, they’re already going through the struggles of how in the world we’re going to pay for this out-of-state tuition,’” Hawk said. “‘I’m just going to eat my words.’”
Bearing the load alone took a toll, and not just on Hawk’s pitching performance.
She isolated herself in friendships and relationships. In the classroom, it got harder to focus, and Hawk found herself caring less about doing well.
“I felt like I’d transformed completely as a person, and that was just not who I am,” she said.
Hawk wasn’t fazed when she was told counseling was an option.
“Honestly, at that point, I was just like, ‘If that works, put me in it, because the good Lord knows I need it,’” Hawk said.
She started undergoing sessions with Dr. Angel Brutus in MSU’s counseling and sports psychology department.
Brutus left to work with Team USA, but Hawk still goes in every two weeks for sessions with department coordinator Janae Robinson. Talking has helped.
“They just help you with the smallest things — to get over it or avoid it, they have a pathway,” she said.
‘I do belong here’
Hawk ended her 2022 season just how she started it — on a high note.
She pitched two key innings against Florida State in the Bulldogs’ NCAA Regional clincher and appeared in both games of the program’s first-ever Super Regional against Arizona. She finished the year with a 3.02 ERA and 105 strikeouts in just shy of 100 innings.
Hawk helped Mississippi State get the chance to host the Super Regional after its historic upset of the Seminoles in Tallahassee.
“It was pretty exciting,” Hawk said. “Everyone was counting us out, so we kind of just had our own backs.”
Hawk said the Bulldogs are “seeing the puzzle pieces fall into place” ahead of the 2023 campaign, which begins Thursday at FAU in Boca Raton, Florida.
As a senior, she and Wesley will be expected to handle the bulk of the innings, and she’s now a veteran on MSU’s roster.
“You definitely feel like people turn to you to know what’s going on or what to expect,” Hawk said. “But I do catch myself still asking the freshmen what’s going on.”
It’s been three years since Hawk arrived in Starkville, unproven and unsure.
To her head coach, Hawk is a whole new person and player after proving herself in a “transformational” 2022 season.
“She’s confident. She’s fist-pumping. She’s pointing at her teammates making big plays,” Ricketts said. “It’s just really fun to see her embracing her athleticism as well as her pitching ability out there.”
The Bulldogs coach commended Hawk for her difficult decision to seek help.
Ricketts said mental health — just like physical health — needs to be addressed when a problem arises.
“I think for such a long time, mental health was almost taboo, and people didn’t speak of it,” Ricketts said. “Really proud of her for speaking up, for lending her voice and her story. If that can help another athlete down the line, I think that’s so important for us.”
Hawk has come a long way. She says she feels more comfortable this year, able to confide in friends on the team when she needs to. Her coaches are behind her. Her family is there for support.
But there will still be tough times ahead.
Maybe Hawk will walk a batter. Maybe she’ll give up a hit — a bloop single or a ringing double off the wall. Her heart will start racing. The negative thoughts will creep back into her head.
Kenley Hawk knows how to handle that now.
She’ll take a deep breath. She’ll look at Ricketts in the dugout.
And she’ll read the three words on her glove.
“That’s when you’re like, ‘You know what? I do belong here,’” Hawk said. “And then you just go about your day.”
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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